Thursday, August 7, 2014

Starting this Saturday I will have two paintings hanging in a region art exhibit of the Southeastern Indiana Art Guild in Aurora Indiana.
There will be an Open reception and awards ceremony on
Saturday August 9th. The show was judged by painter Christopher Leeper.Appetizers and drinks will
be provided for the reception beginning at 6; award presentations at 7
and wrapping up the evening at 8pm. I will have a Cincinnati City view plein air painting and the still life shown below. I wrote about this painting before if you are interested. Click Here.

The Gallery is located at Main & Second St, Aurora, Indiana, 47001The Gallery will be open for public viewing that evening until 8pm The show will remain open the following week of the 10th through the 16th.Hours will be
as follows: Sunday 2pm - 6 pm Monday -Thursday 3pm-8pm Friday noon til 8pm Saturday 1pm-5pm

Stop and see the show. I will be there opening night. I can usually be found near the appetizers and drinks. On a side note, I got interested in the word Hoosier. Why are folks from Indiana called Hoosiers? Well, I Googled it and have the very vague and unsatisfying answer for you here:

How did Indiana get its nickname as “The Hoosier State”?
(Copied from the Indiana Historical Society.)
And how did
people from Indiana come to be called “Hoosiers”? There are many
different theories about how the word Hoosier came to be and how it came
to have such a connection with the state of Indiana.
One of the earliest known uses of the term is found in an 1827 letter
that states, “There is a yankee trick for you – done up by a Hoosier.”
Other early uses provide some clues about the meaning of the word. In
1831, Gen. John Tipton received a proposal from a businessman offering
to name his boat the “Indiana Hoosier” if Tipton would give him business
in the area. Sarah Harvey, a Quaker from Richmond, explained in an 1835
letter to her relatives, “old settlers in Indiana are called ‘Hooshers’
and the cabins they first live in ‘Hoosher nests’ . . .”
The word “Hoosier” was widely used by the 1830s. Around this time, John Finley of Richmond wrote a poem called The Hoosier’s Nest,
which was widely read. He wrote the word as “hoosher” and did not
explain its meaning, which leads historians to believe that Finley felt
his readers would already know and understand the word. Finley wrote,
“With men of every hue and fashion, Flock to this rising ‘Hoosher’
nation.”
So, what does the word mean? In 1848, Bartlett’s Dictionary of
Americanisms defined “Hoosier” as “A nickname given at the west, to
natives of Indiana.” In John Finley’s poem, the word “Hoosher” seems to
refer less to the pioneers of Indiana and more to the qualities he
thought they possessed, like self-reliance and bravery.
No one seems to know how the word “Hoosier” came to be. Some people
think it was meant to mock Indiana as a rough, backwoods and backwards
place. Others think that early settlers used the term with pride to
describe themselves as a hearty, courageous group. One historian, Jacob
Piatt Dunn, even suggested that the word “Hoosier” originally referred
to boatmen who lived on the Indiana shore. We may never know for sure,
but research and debate are likely to continue about this mysterious
word.

The following theories and stories about the origin of the word “Hoosier” are known to be false:

It comes from the word Hoosa, which means American Indian maize or corn.

Hoosier’s Men was a term used for Indiana employees of a canal contractor named Hoosier.

“Who’s
ear?” – Writer James Whitcomb Riley joked that this question,
supposedly posed by early Indiana settlers following tavern fights which
had resulted in someone’s ear being cut off and left on the floor,
eventually became the word “Hoosier."

“Who’s yer/here?” – This was supposedly the way early Indiana settlers
would respond to a knock on their cabin doors. The story goes that it
was eventually shortened to “Hoosier?”

“Who’s your [relative]?” – Again, legend has it that this question was eventually shortened to “Hoosier?”

Friday, August 1, 2014

I will have a painting in an art show that opens tonight in the Bang & Olufsen store downtown. It is funny, people have always told me my work would really look good displayed with high end audio / visual equipment. Finally that has become a reality. The show will feature work from members of the Cincinnati Art Club.

About Me

I am a painter and illustrator working in my studio in Eden Park.
ver⋅i⋅si⋅mil⋅i⋅tude
[ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood, -tyood] –noun
1. the appearance or semblance of truth.
2. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.